Posted
by
timothy
on Thursday November 08, 2012 @11:20AM
from the depends-how-you-count dept.

zacharye writes "The best-selling smartphone in the world is no longer an iPhone. New data released on Thursday by market research firm Strategy Analytics finds that Samsung's Galaxy S III was the world's top-selling smartphone model in the third quarter this year, displacing Apple's iPhone for the first time in years. Samsung announced earlier this week that cumulative Galaxy S III channel sales reached the 30 million unit milestone and according to Strategy Analytics, 18 million of those were shipped in Q3 2012. During the same period, Apple shipped an estimated 16.2 million iPhone 4S handsets, slipping into the No.2 spot for the quarter..."Also at Slash Cloud.

The iPhone 5 will absolutely CRUSH in Q4. Not a hater. I'm one of the GS3's in that Q3 number. I was about to buy the iPhone 5 but then Amazon was selling the GS3 for $99 and got my attention. That was that.

What do you think Apple is, exactly? There is prior art for every single patent Apple used against Samsung when they won in Germany, just for example. A funny take on a couple aspects of this: http://9gag.com/gag/5195630 [9gag.com]

HTC's mistake was Sense and bloatware. All but their highest-end phones are completely unusable, and the high end ones are still crap compared to the competition. They have no one to blame but themselves.

You are mistaken. The iPhone 5 was released in Q3. That's why this includes the iPhone 5 in the sales figures it's comparing against the Samsung Galaxy SIII.

Face it, Apple fans, you're time has come. The iPhone is in decline, iOS 6 is an unmitigated disaster, and Android is going to reign supreme. The writing has always been on the wall, now it's finally coming to pass.

I do feel kind of bad for all the iPhone owners who are going to have to rebuy all their apps for Android in a few years, but - who am I kidding, no I don't.

So, if you compare all models of Android to all models of iPhone, people say it's unfair because "Apple has a single model", and if you compare a single model of Android to a single model of iPhone, it's unfair because "Apple has more than one model"? Interesting.

1) There's no such thing as "intellectual property"2) Repeating a number someone else utters isn't stealing.3) Even conceding the ridiculous premise that points 1 and 2 are incorrect, "IP stealing," as you put it, would be a tort, not a crime.

Numbers like this absolutely do matter outside fanboy circles. As I pointed out in another thread yesterday, Apple has lost 20% of it's share price in the 7 weeks since it hit it's all time high, shaving $130bn off the value of the company.

This figure has actually now increased to 22% including today's trading figures upping that dollar loss in value substantially more. Whether this is because of this news, or the story about them losing their Facetime patent battle I'm not sure:

There seems little doubt Apple is faltering now, as their legal strategy has largely fallen flat in all but their own backyard too. The only question is whether they can do anything with next years product releases (iPad 4 and iPhone 6), or release any new devices in new markets to reverse the current trend. If they can't do that then I'd argue they're in pretty severe trouble, the vast majority of their profits are based on their mobile offerings right now. I imagine It'll be an interesting 2013 for those watching Apple one way or another, either a tragic plummet (if iPhone/iPad sales struggle they inherently suffer a risk of iTunes store content and app purchases plummeting too) or an impressive comeback.

Either way, the tides have certainly changed against Apple this last month or two for the time being at least, despite two new major product releases.

Despite all the bickering and indignant attitude, most, if not all, fail to see the obvious. This is MacOS v. Windows again. MacOS was first to market (1984 vs 1985) and had all the goodies that the "cool kids" wanted. Microsoft came out with Windows and it was a pale imitation of the Mac System, but it ran on anybody's hardware. Apple derided Microsoft for their crappy junk. After a few iterations, Windows became the clear winner just because every hardware maker could and did bundle it on their PC for a lot less money than Apple wanted.

Google has taken a page from the Microsoft play book. Android is already way bigger than IOS. IOS market share is dropping even while raw sales are expanding. Android has parity in usability and features. The top Android phone has sales parity with the top Apple phone. The Android ecosystem is just going to expand.

As long as Apple earns massive margins on their product, more and more competitors will enter the market. This will reduce prices and steal more of Apple's customers. Many Android phone's have quality equivalent to the iPhone, and sometimes are in different ways better. Microsoft is now entering the market as a serious competitor. Apple knows this and they are pissing in their boots, They are lashing out the only way they know: litigation; just like before. They may have "invented" the smartphone or pioneered the market, but they are doomed by sheer numbers of competitors. They know it. Unless Apple can pull the next "big thing" out of their asses, they will fall back again. And Jobs won't be around to save them next time.

No, I think you mistook his meaning. If you have an Idea, I can copy it. If you use your Idea to make something, I can use that same Idea to make something too. If my use of the Idea isn't a copy of your product/implementation of the Idea, it's not a copy of what you did.

Intellectual Property shouldn't exist (no claim has been made about actual property). You shouldn't be able to lay exclusive claim to an Idea.

Apple has the advantage that they only sell one phone and call it the iPhone. Samsung on the other hand has many Samsung Galaxy [gsmarena.com] devices. A similar phenomenon exists for LG Optimus [gsmarena.com] phones. So almost all of Apple's sales are concentrated on a single device. I wonder who sells more phones overall.

I was waiting for it. The bad excuse that fanboys use to convince themselves this isn't happening. The different SGS 3 devices are akin to the fact Apple sells Iphones with Samsung, LG or Sharp screens, or the fact they have a 16, 32 or 64 GB SKU or do you honestly think there is no hardware difference between the Sprint/Verizon CDMA Iphones and the GSM Iphones? The SGS3 outsold the Iphone, you need to deal with it.

Or more important, who makes more profit overall. I think Apple is still king on that one.

You're right that this is important to a lot of people, but not for the reason you think. The fact that Apple is making more profit than Samsung per unit means that by buying a Samsung, I will likely get a much better deal.

The litany of predictions does not bode well for Apple.
In the beginning Apple fanboys said "Android will never sell" and Android sold.

Next Apple fanboys said "Android would never outsell Iphones" and Android outsold Iphones.

Then they said, "No single Android device will outsell Iphones" and the SGS3 outsold the Iphone.